Self-edited ramblings about whatever I feel like talking about. Usually related to some sort of game-like activity.

December 17, 2012

Pre-Christmas Gaming

Since I returned last weekend I haven't really done much hobby stuff, as my time has been occupied by holiday preparations, band rehearsals, work, and being sick. I haven't let that icky 'real world' stuff keep me completely away from the realm of geekdom however.

On Thursday night I made the trek down to Trilogy to play some games with Uncle Mike and James. It was their regular monthly night for Strange Aeons. Rather than just play a straight up game of Strange Aeons though, James and I ended up doing a play test game of Kulten instead. I was going to pit my lowly snake man cult up against his mighty Cobra army...but after looking at the massive point difference, we decided to try one of the Alert the Authorities options instead. So I opted for having my cult sit out, and an elite Threshold team worth a whopping 60 points took their place.

Long story short James was able to achieve victory with minimal damages. We found a possible rule that needs some tweaking in the scenario setup phase, and I offered some input for text advice to go into that section of the book. The game was fun of course, and I certainly made some mistakes. The biggest one being a lack of Command for my army. If I'd had just one more command model I could have swung the balance I think...

I also found out that some models I'd ordered previously were in. Looks like some Ori troops for my Stargate projects can get underway immediately after I finish my Jaffa. The Ori army should actually be pretty easy to put together. I'm only planning on having two small squads of actual troops, as I'll make the two or three Priors quite powerful. They'll be led by Adria the Orici, who will be ridiculously powerful, and if I can find an appropriate model that I can tweak to look right, I'll also put the head Prior, the Doci. Now that I have my troopers, it shouldn't take too long to find the 4 or 5 other models I need to complete them.

Sunday I returned to the shop to play a few more demo games of DreadBall. There was a Warmachine tournament going on, so any of my demo candidates were already occupied. Seb had taken the store's two demo armies home over the weekend and gotten a lot of painting done on the Ork team. The game looked a lot better with two nearly-painted teams on the pitch.

The first game was a landslide victory by the Corporation under Coach Fontaine. They outscored the Orks under my command 7-0 on their fifth rush, forcing me to forfeit the match (thems da rulez). For our second game we decided to try out the stats for the Forgefathers and Veer-myn teams instead. Not having the models we used the Ork and Human team models as stand-ins, with the Veer-myn under my control.

It didn't look good for me as the Dwarves crushed and killed one of my two guards on the first action of the game! I was able to nab the ball shortly after with one of my speedy (but not that skilled) strikers. Amazingly I was able to put in a 4-pointer to open the scoring. The Forgefathers continued moving up the pitch and were able to reduce my lead to a mere two points at the halfway point.

With my opponent's slower movement I decided not to try bringing out my remaining guard and played several rounds with a full six strikers on the pitch. I did lose another one to a brutal seven-success slam...of which I saved exactly ZERO on my dodge and armour checks. After another three point strike the dwarves were hard pressed to keep up with my speed and I finished the game off on my fifth turn with another 3-pointer, forcing Seb to forfeit.

I actually quite enjoyed playing the Veer-myn team, but they are very fragile. On the whole after playing several games I think DreadBall is quite fun as a pick-up game, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how it stands up to league play. I think that's where it will really shine!